Feverence

I have stopped being able to concentrate. There is a pilot light where my stomach used to be, and it's caused said organ to catapult atop my racing heart. There it teeters, precariously, like a drunken tight rope artist.

Needless to say, I have no appetite, which is just as well, since my salivatory glands seem to have been replaced by cotton and gauze.

My cheeks are hot to the touch, which means they are spackled with lopsided bursts of magenta from cheekbones to chin. (Where's my COVID mask when I need it?) Worst of all, my breath has morphed into an erratic audible, high-pitched wheeze like an atomizer nearly out of spritz.

All this began the moment that Paul from Accounting joined the meeting, looking all square-shouldered and strong-jawed with those fire-blue eyes and luscious lips. My mind begins conjuring how they taste, and I catch myself closing my eyes to enhance and savor the fantasy even more.

Please tell me that the throaty moan I just heard did not come from me.

I force my eyes open and see that everyone around the conference table is staring back, concern shrouding their expressions.

"Katharine, are you alright?" asks Tom from Legal. "Your coloring's a bit, um, vivid."

"Lovely, though," Paul from Accounting adds. His voice sizzles my ear drums to little, crispy filaments. "But Tom's right; definitely more defined than usual."

The comment makes bubbles of sweat cluster at my hairline. Almost immediately, I feel the biggest one break from the pack, gliding a trail of moisture down my nose. It swan-dives from the side of my nostril and plunges to its silent death onto the conference table below. Everyone is so enraptured with this tableau that I half expect them to hold up signs, like at the Olympics, that display high nines and tens. I sense I am bringing a new level of auspiciousness to the Midweek Management Meeting, one that will never be surpassed.

In the next sharp beat of my pulse, though, I notice that their stares of incredulity have been replaced by those of alarm. It's because I've begun trembling like a washing machine with an uneven load in the spin cycle.

Paul from Accounting springs from his spot and rushes toward me, chivalrously draping his tasteful gray wool-blend suit coat over my shoulders. A subtle bouquet of woodsy soap and sexy-man promises waft into my open, panting mouth. I whimper like a champion Labrador that's about to deliver a brood of mongrels.

Someone shouts, "Quick! Bring her some water!"

"And a cookie!" adds Sophie from HR, the company Everymom. There is much movement and bustle on all sides.

It takes several minutes, but, at last, my coloring and breathing resume to an area in the range of normal. I no longer feel like my co-workers are the trained research scientists and I am a new species of bug between the glass plates of their collective microscope.

We, dutifully, re-seat ourselves around the conference table. Paul from Accounting and his fire-blue eyes are, again, directly across from me. I ignore the heat rising up in me that scalds as if I am sitting on a cushion of fire ants.

Following my colleagues' cue, I quickly open my laptop and fixate on the screen.

"I recognize your symptoms," the DM reads. "You have Feverence. I've had it, too, since we kissed good-by this morning at my front door. All that cures it is a second dose of indulgence. See you back at my place at 6:00? Smile if the answer is yes."

I swipe pings of perspiration from my space bar, give a surreptitious glance across the table and beam.